Kolkata: The violence during the panchayat election in West Bengal has claimed the lives of 13 persons and many injured. Polling booths were looted and destroyed and even presiding officers were assaulted. This has led to widespread outrage against the West Bengal government for its apathy in curbing the violence.
Now reports say that the BSF was not informed about the sensitive polling booths in the state by the West Bengal State Election Commission.
The DIG BSF, SS Guleria, said that BSF had written several letters to the state election commission seeking information on sensitive polling booths. However, no information was given except the numbers of such booths. The location of these booths was not revealed to the central security forces.
He added that there were 59,000 troops of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) and state armed police from 25 states arrived for election duty. But these security personnel were not adequately utilized on sensitive polling booths.
The DIG said that the state had declared only 4834 sensitive booths but actually there were more sensitive booths.
Union Minister Nishith Pramanik said that the election was not a festival of the republic but a festival of death. He blamed the TMC government for not even putting out an accurate official count of deaths that took place across the state.
He said that several people lost their lives while many more are missing.
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